Despite tremendous advances in medicine, breast cancer remains a leading cause of death in the United States as well as the rest of the world. In view of the limited treatment options for patients with advanced stages of breast cancer, preventive control approaches, in particular chemoprevention could play an important role in therapeutic strategies to combat this disease
Although previous studies have shown the anticancer potential of methyl-amooranin (AMR-Me), a derivative of amooranin (AMR), primarily in in vitro models, pre-clinical evaluation of its efficacy could not be possible due to unavailability of sufficient quantity of these compounds. Currently, there is no commercial method available for the production of AMR or AMR-Me. Medication options for breast cancer chemoprevention include tamoxifen or raloxifene. Nevertheless, therapeutic use of these two drugs is limited to selected high-risk population. There are also considerable side effects of these drugs as well as the risk of endometrial cancer or uterine cancer. In view of these, discovery of new non-toxic breast cancer chemopreventive agent will have broader and unparalleled therapeutic utilities.